Slax author's Blog

05

May2013

Slax update

I tried to make another Slax update, following the progress of KDE, Xorg and other software, but I got some issues again with KDE's task bar not being drawn properly. I have to admit that this drives me crazy :) So I guess it will be better to wait for another KDE update.

User comments

Alessandro Gorreta2013-05-05 22:52

My little suggestion.....
Have you examined possibility to use another than KDE as main windows manager ?
For example LXDE ?

Remus Satală2013-05-06 04:40

Why not release a beta?

internetonly2013-05-06 06:34

...Tomas, Slax Power Users are always waiting for new kernel module only... Why don't you release new versions of Slax 7 (let's say RC or BETA versions) with only the following bundles : core.sb (including always the latest kernel available from AUFS) / xorg.sb / devel.sb / ffox.sb ???... Forget about kde.sb / kdeps.sb / kapps.sb and so on. At http://www.slax.org/en/modules.php we have a lot of modules to extend Slax.
Or, include a new bundle in Slax, named kernel.sb - including latest kernel available. Or, in fact, with devel.sb available in Slax we can make / install what app. we need / want, at any moment. In particular, because Slax 7 becomes bloated due to KDE, I removed kde.sb from Slax and inserted jwm.sb and now Slax 7 is running very fast and happy... (even on old hardware). So, in conclusion : please, always release RC or BETA versions of Slax 7 with only the latest kernel available from AUFS.

tony d2013-05-06 17:27

My Kde works fine. All I would like to see is a command to update Slax, something like " slax update all ".

Saman2013-05-06 18:57

Lets take a look at first paragraph of Slax.org home page:
"Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach"

@Alessandro Gorreta
Slax concept is not compatible with heaviness of KDE or GNOME.

@ internetonly
I agree, that it is much better to release updates based on separate modules except a complete package. Frankly, some people may have difficulties for downloading the whole package at once.

FeyFre2013-05-06 20:50

Yes, for some reason in 7.0.8 I had problems starting X to, It started with black desktop, only one small white rectangle(~100x100) on top-left conner of screen?
Tomas, do you have AMD APU device to test on?
Recent Slackware-current(3.8.8 based kernels) has problems booting X on mine A4 3400 APU. Recently released Catalyst driver helps but not much. I described it on [url=http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/19th-april-current-update-vs-amds-apu-4175459439/]this thread on LQo [/url]

Remus Satală2013-05-07 03:46

I would like a module for tv-maxe.

http://code.google.com/p/tv-maxe/

Igor2013-05-07 06:39

"but I got some issues again with KDE's task bar not being drawn properly. I have to admit that this drives me crazy :)"
Similarly: 7.06-08
helps to clear the contents of the plasma-desktop-appletsrc
until the next reboot.
(/root/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc)

I've made my own custom slax-based distro using 7.0.0 in the past. While it works flawelessly on my test cases, broader test results show an incompatibility with some ADM Vision or NVidia-based chipset (yeah, nvidia -.-"). Changes log shows (since 7.0.4) that you have made improvement over graphics detection, in which X will try to fallback to VESA mode whenever it's unable to load required graphic drivers.

The thing is, I've made huge modification on many files (initramfs, rc-scripts, etc), stripped modules, and added other modules as well. Stripping and adding files to the modules will be an easy one since i've tracked the changes, but how about the rc-scripts and initramfs, especially initramfs? Will I be able to use my own initramfs on the latest slax build, and still have the advantages over the patches provided by the recent version?

Thx in advance

Igor2013-05-13 01:20

blog activity:
January 09,10,15,18,19,22,28,30
February 03,04,08,12,18,19,23
March 07,13,14,15,16,17,25
April 04
May 05
...
RIP ?
$ -->0=t -->0 or no problem?

internetonly2013-05-14 13:41

@ Igor :
...Some time ago (331 days ago) , Tomas wrote on Slax forum :
"...As you probably noticed, I didn't release any Slax version during the last few years. I was able to put together the preview version of Slax 7, but wasn't able to finalize it since it involves a lot of work, not only on Slax but also this website. My main focus nowadays is my family (I have two kids and a big loan) and I need to work on projects which make me money. I'm used to high life standard, thus I need to earn a lot :)

Is Slax dead? Well, I didn't abandon the project entirely, but it is currently frozen. That means dead for someone. Actually I hate the idea of not being able to continue my work on Slax, but the main question is, is it still needed? There are so many Linux distributions, bigger or small, and the size limit of 200MB is so unimportant nowadays, while there are 16GB flash drives for less than $10.

Is there a chance that Slax will be recovered? Yes of course. But I need to find out the way how to make money with it. It has to be a profitable project, I don't have resources now to work on it for free, even if I would love to. I tried several ways to monetize Slax, web advertisement didn't work, public donations didn't work as well, selling Slax Drive service didn't work too. I had also an idea to let advertisers put own wallpaper to each Slax download, that could maybe work, but I don't have resources to try to bring that to life.

Maybe crowd funding could work out of the box, a brief look at kickstarter.com makes me feel it would be very easy to collect significant sum, which would even let me hire several other people to help me with it. But I am a citizen of Czech Republic and I can't use kickstarter, which is IMHO the only place where to setup crowd funding successfully. Perhaps if there is anybody in USA who I could trust, who would be willing to open a kickstarter project and receive the money on his US bank account through Amazon ... and then send the money to me (this is the most important part) ... :) If you are such a person and you think crowd funding could work through you, mail me!

But if you want to takeover the project, don't email me please, you don't need me for that. I'm not going to give the 'Slax' name to anybody, and you don't need the name anyway. If you want to build a tiny nice Linux Live OS then make one yourself, even based on Slax, but call it by your name. You do not need the Slax brand at all. I am writing this because there were several requests for that already..."

Well as a programmer has explain me and tried slax on multiple computers which have different hardware and capasidad worked wonders for me but I found a problem using my elitebook wifi that was recognized all the hardware but no wifi! oks ... Install the iwlwifi module which is the wifi driver intel bn after the reboot worked perfectly but when you turn the pc the other time encendia network module wiriless had uninstalled errors and required that the system to function denuevo installed the module as not was worth deactivate and reactivate

Rafael Alcocer2013-05-14 23:25

Remus Satală I have an almost working module for TV-MAXE , i have a problem with getting the channel list, everything else works.

as the root user I have internet and wifi access, but not as a normal user. must be able to enable non-root user in a certain group to wifi?
Thanks in advance!

Greetings Jens

P.s.: sorry for my broken english!

pistal2013-05-16 20:36

@ Jens N.
Try ask on forum http://old.slax.org/forum.php

Rafael Alcocer2013-05-19 22:53

New project KLyDE', for K Lightweight Desktop Environment, and it's an effort to point KDE at the lightweight desktop market. http://blogs.kde.org/2013/04/11/hackweek9-lightweight-kde-desktop-project-updated

tony d2013-05-21 16:04

XFCE would be my second choice...hands down.

Anton Ivanov2013-05-23 12:51

LXDE or XFCE!!!

Kiki Novak2013-05-30 00:00

Hi,

Is there any way to access all Slax TGZ or TXZ packages individually? I'm asking this question since I like Slax very much, only I'd like to run it directly from the hard disk. I guess the ideal solution would be to generate a custom-built Slackware installation CD or DVD, containing the required set of basic Slackware packages as well as the custom Slax packages.

(PS: I'm contacting you in this blog, since I couldn't find any mail contact address...)

Cheers from the sunny South of France.

delta-slax2014-10-06 23:58

Hello.
The Slax 7.0.8 has not been updated for a long time; I am afraid of discontinuing the Slax development program. The Slax 6.1.2 was also has been stopped developing.